CRIME PREVENTION IN ESTONIA

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CRIME PREVENTION IN ESTONIA
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Crime Prevention working levels

• Crime Prevention (CP) is practiced on 3 levels
• National level
• Local level
• Community level
• In addition to this international level we are
  the members of the European Crime Prevention
  Network (EUCPN), currently have 2 bilateral
  cooperation projects (COPS, BECCARIA) with
  different European Countries- leading partners
  are UK and Germany.

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National Level

• Five ministries, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ),
  the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of
  Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs,
  participate in crime prevention work through the
  National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC).
• By the Parliament it has been confirmed Criminal
  Policy Development Strategy until the year 2010
  , which are the guidelines for the ministries
  for implementing the crime prevention everyday
  work. The report of the CP activities under this
  mentioned strategy has to be presented in
  Parliament once a year.

4
National Level

• NCPC is a governmental advising commission. Its
  work is coordinated by the criminal policy
  department in the Ministry of Justice. 27 members
  from different three levels. Has meeting 4 times
  a year.

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Local Level

• On the level of local municipalities (LM) (244)
  crime prevention work means working out specific
  measures and applying them locally in order to
  increase the security of local people. For better
  co-ordination of work some of the counties and
  also local municipalities have established their
  own crime prevention councils or they have
  committees working with public order.
• Crime prevention work is not obligated, it is
  voluntary for the local level.

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Local Level

• The third sector (NGO-s) is actively involved in
  crime prevention, mainly through social work,
  youth work, drug prevention and neighbourhood
  watch movement.
• MOJ has several different good cooperation
  partners from the NGO-s for example Estonian
  Neighbourhood Watch Association, Caritas Estonia,
  Estonian Union for Child Welfare, Tallinn
  Children Support!Centre, etc.

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Criminal Policy Activities

• Criminal Policy department since December 2003,
  CP one of the department functions.
• This department turns more attention to the
  research done in this area and to the evidence
  based approach in criminal policy.
• There has been worked out new victim
  support!system under the new Victim Support!Act
  (entered into force 1 February 2004), (volunteers
  working in accordance with the principle of
  regionality).

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Criminal Policy Activities

• There is new Code of Criminal Procedure (entered
  into force 1 July 2004), which gives the leading
  role to the prosecutors in pre-trial criminal
  procedure.
• In the prison system there is the development in
  building new cell type prisons and closing down
  the old ones, which had not so good possibilities
  of isolating the inmates.

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Criminal Policy Activities

• There has been passed State Legal Aid Act in 28
  June 2004 and the purpose of this Act is to
  ensure the timely and sufficient availability of
  competent and reliable legal services to all
  persons.
• The police system work is more community based
  and people have more credit in police.
• Concerning the statistics there has been positive
  changes in crimes against persons (it has
  decreased with the last years) and also people
  themselves have started to protect their property
  and prevent crime themselves.

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Crime Prevention Activities

• CP project funding for NGO-s, LM since 2004,
  (2004 500 000 EEK, 2005 2 000 000 EEK) most of
  the support!went for social prevention among
  youngsters
• NCPC meetings
• Civil Integrity Award since 2004, the first time
  there was awarded 11 persons, who helped crime
  victims, intervened in crime situations, etc.
• CP website and safety campaign- planned in spring
  2005

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Crime Prevention Activities

• CP public events with cooperation partners
  (police, ngo-s, road administration, etc) and
  implementing CP materials- brochures, handbooks,
  etc.
• CP conferences seminars, lately concerning the
  CP campaigning, public order
• CP trainings for local and community level in
  Police Academy in 2004